Gateway, Sun help lift tech sector

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- Technology stocks started the week on an upbeat note Monday as the sector rose and hardware companies such as Sun Microsystems and Gateway detailed their latest competitive efforts.

Gateway
GTW
detailed more of its new retail strategy by saying CompUSA would begin carrying the personal-computer maker's desktop PCs at its stores nationwide beginning this week, following on a similar deal recently inked with Best Buy
BBY, -0.47%.
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Gateway's shares rose 33 cents, or almost 9 percent, to close at $4.11.

Meanwhile, Sun
SUNW, +8.48%
said it would expand its H-P Away program, aimed at getting Hewlett-Packard's server customers to switch to Sun's products instead. Sun's program now includes offering certain H-P's customers a lower-priced method of switching to servers that run on Advanced Micro Devices'
AMD, +1.59%
Opteron processors.

Dell
DELL, -1.18%
rose 28 cents to close at $34.79 in spite of after saying its would stop selling low-end consumer PCs in China due to stiff price competition.

Personal-computer companies managed to rise in spite of concerns raised by market research firm Gartner, which said that there is a greater potential for PC shipments in 2004 to slip below current estimates. Gartner analyst Kiyomi Yamada said that "recent U.S. economic data does increase the uncertainty over the PC market's performance in second half (of the year)."

Gartner still estimates that worldwide PC shipments are likely to rise 12.6 percent in 2004. However, Gartner analyst George Shiffler said "the recent run-up in oil prices and talk of a U.S. economic "soft patch" increase the possibility that this replacement cycle could be undercut by external events."

Chip giant Intel
INTC, -0.89%
fell 14 cents to close at $21.41 and was the most actively traded issued on the Nasdaq Composite
$COMPQ,
with more than 59 million shares exchanged. With Intel on top, the Nasdaq rose more than 26 points to close at 1,782.

Among other leading tech stocks, Microsoft
MSFT, -0.15%
rose 7 cents to end the day at $27.09. Before the market opened, the European Union said it would extend until Aug. 25 a review of a proposed joint venture between Microsoft and Time Warner
TWX, +0.00%.

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